If you’re a small business looking online to improve your business marketing, find new customers, or check out how other small business owners are solving problems like yours, maybe you’ve used a social networking site like Facebook or LinkedIn.
It’s hard to read a business publication or go online without finding an article on the pros or cons of participating in social networking web sites. So I joined the fray last week when I was interviewed, along with some others, by Lauren Tara LaCapra of TheStreet.com for her small business article, Social Networking Can Be a Friend Indeed.
According to her article (and others) there are two primary reasons small businesses use social networking sites:
1. Finding help. Getting answers and opinions from other small business owners facing similar problems, finding partners, recruiting employees or locating other resources.
2. Growing a business. Attracting prospects, learning what’s on the minds of their target markets and gaining new customers.
Getting Answers from Like-minded People
I shared my recent LinkedIn experience with LaCapra. I needed a video company for a client of mine located in Northern California. (I’m in sunny Southern California.) I went onto LinkedIn and put the question out to folks in my LinkedIn contacts that are based up north. This was just more efficient for me than going to my Outlook contacts. I received lots of good, quality referrals in a couple of hours. Thank you LinkedIn!
One CEO of an 80-person software company told me that he never used recruiters again to hire new employees after discovering LinkedIn. He now always uses his online network and asks for referrals.
In her article, LaCapra found that Bank of America and VISA, in an effort to expand their own brands, are launching social networking sites (online communities) aimed at small business owners. These large companies (or their marketing departments) want to be viewed as a resource to entrepreneurs and small businesses.
These sites offer message boards, forums and guest experts as a way to provide value to small businesses. The entrepreneurs at the BofA site are asking questions on nagging issues like customer service, how much to budget for marketing (that’s the $64,000 question) and how to finance a business.
I’d rather see Corporate America invest marketing dollars in creating social networking sites/online communities that provide real value for their target market vs. producing traditional, glitzy advertising (interruption marketing). But I digress…
See my post here about Autodesk, maker of design software. Small businesses can learn much from Autodesk about building customer and user loyalty by hosting an online community.
Why Should You Create a Social Networking Site for Your Prospects & Customers?
The most important to-do for small businesses from all of this is to find out how other companies are using social networking sites/online communities. How are others attracting prospects, learning what’s on a buyer’s mind, and winning them as customers?
7 Benefits of Building Your Own Online Community
What are the benefits of creating your own social networking site or online community? You can:
1. Attract prospects and build loyalty.
2. Learn from your customers what is on their (rapidly changing) mind.
3. Open the door for two-way conversations online with customers and prospects—often way better than the one-way dialogue of email newsletters or print marketing.
4. Get ideas about what problems you can help them solve—new ways to use your products/services.
5. Listen to the online customer conversations and figure out how to make your products and services better.
6. Be a valuable online resource, you can build loyalty with your current customers.
7. Leverage social networking, social media, online communities, and blogs to build the best marketing of all—word of mouth.
These are the reasons Bank of America launched a social networking site. I say if BofA can do it—you can too! You don’t need a large budget.
I’ll offer ideas on how to accomplish these benefits in future posts. You can read the entire Social Networking article by Lauren Tara LaCapra here.
This post is from: SmallCompanyBigImage
Related post:
An intriguing dimention of social media is in BtoB community development. What works for a customer perhaps can work for a group of business partners engaged in similar but possibly competitive market offerings and in a community of vendor to business partner relationships. Imagine the power of social media in the cultivation of complimentary business partners making connections to form a larger solution. Would there be an advantage of a vendor plugging into a business partner community and if so, how or what would be the advantage? That one I have not figured out yet. Developing the value of social media in the business partner channel has to be a next dimension of social media development.
Hi Mark,
For small businesses especially, social media in the form of online communities could be valuable. I agree, in the partner channel, for one, sales people in different channels could access a private online social network and share what works/doesn’t work for a new product introduction.
From a vendor standpoint, last fall, Marketing Sherpa did a case study on a software company that launched a successful year-long campaign and joined ITToolbox.com. They were careful to participate as community members and contribute to the conversation. After sometime, they offered white papers to community members in key stages of the sales cycle. I posted about the story here http://www.smallcompanybigimage.com/using-social-networking-sites-for-lead-generation-marketing-sherpa-success-story/
It is a very interesting example; the company took a long view of how long it would take to see results. That’s a good thing; when vendors become community members they must do that. This type of effort is not a traditional marketing campaign by any means.
Hope this helps.
-Cynthia